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MBE Advance Access published online on March 31, 2006
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msk014
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Accepted March 29, 2006

Research Article

The Step-Wise Evolution of Early Life Driven by Energy Conservation

James G. Ferry 1 * and Christopher H. House 2

1 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Penn State Astrobiology Research Center, 205 South Frear Laboratory, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
2 Department of Geosciences and Penn State Astrobiology Research Center, Penn State University, 220 Deike Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
James G. Ferry, E-mail: jgf3{at}psu.edu


  Abstract

Two main theories have emerged for the origin and early evolution of life based on heterotrophic versus chemoautotrophic metabolisms. With the exception of a role for CO, the theories have little common ground. Here we propose an alternative theory for the early evolution of the cell which combines principal features of the widely-disparate theories. The theory is based on the extant pathway for conversion of CO to methane and acetate, largely deduced from the genomic analysis of the archaeon Methanosarcina acetivorans. In contrast to current paradigms, we propose that an energy-conservation pathway was the major force which powered and directed the early evolution of the cell. We envision that the proposed primitive energy-conservation pathway to have developed sometime after a period of chemical evolution, but prior to the establishment of diverse protein-based anaerobic metabolisms. We further propose that energy conservation played the predominant role in the later evolution of anaerobic metabolisms which explains the origin and evolution of extant methanogenic pathways.

Keywords: Methanosarcina acetivorans; energy conservation; methanogenesis; acetate kinase; phosphotransacetylase.
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